This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

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Thursday, April 06, 2017

Free school meals for all - paid for by those who choose private education!

A Labour Government will
implement free school meals for all primary age children, funded by levying
Value Added Tax on fees paid by those who choose to send children to private,
fee-paying schools.

This is an excellent answer
to a Tory Britain in which children go hungry – and is also a positive
education policy in its own right. Research confirmed by the National Centre
for Social Research and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown offering
universal access to free school meals improves educational attainment through
improvements in pupils’ productivity, enabling primary school pupils to advance
by around two months on average.

The redistributive element
of the proposed funding for this positive measure (which answers the perennial “where
will the money come from” question) is also good politics. It is not just that
Labour policy today pushed Labour-bashing out of the BBC radio news headlines –
it is that this policy clearly aligns Labour with the people the Party exists
to represent (and proposes that those who can afford to should pay the price).
This policy can unite Labour supporters, former Labour supporters and potential
Labour supporters.

If this policy is “divisive”
it only divides those who need – and believe in – social justice from those
who, benefitting from social injustice (or hoping in future to do so) do not.
Labour needs to frame political debate, wherever we can, around this division,
rather than divisions around nationalism (for example) which fragment our
social base and subordinate our polity to reaction.

Labour has some good progressive policies
on education – and Labour members and supporters are currently being
invited to develop these policies (which can certainly be improved). With a
mass membership throughout the country we need to focus on developing and
promoting socialist policies to offer to the working people of this country,
whilst campaigning in the here and now to protect our interests.

I look forward to seeing delegates at the General Committee of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party this evening to discuss taking forward our Party's campaigning locally.